Verdict

Cards like the 6600GT, GTX460, 660 and now 960 are aimed at the budget concious enthusiast /gamer who is willing to spend 200-300 on a new graphics card. Not everyone can afford, wants or needs a US $550 flagship card in whatever guise it turns out to be. Things get more complicated when we consider exchange rates, local mark ups, taxes and supply and demand. In Australia, flagship GeForces have frequently neared or exceeded AU$1000 and currently GTX980 is no less than $650.

Admittedly, I myself am in the target demographic for the GTX 960 and have purchased the 6600 GT and GTX4 60 for my own PC in the past as these met my budget. US $200 is a good price for what is almost half a GTX980. I have had a GTX 460 and a Radeon HD7850 in my personal machine (being AMD's sweet spot card from 2012) and seeing the performance the GTX 960 achieved here I would be happy had I upgraded from the 460 to the 960 for the money.

While GTX 960 is interesting and efficient for the power, the value proposition for performance per dollar may change very soon. AMD has been known to offer aggressive price cuts or value adds such as their game program, and while NVIDIA also has a game program both typically expire or are introduced depending on pricing for particular new cards

There are also potential future announcements from both vendors which may sway some purchasers,'if I only pay xx dollars more I can have a better GPU'

NVIDIA have again delivered on their constant execution of timely, fast and efficient products. The NVIDIA silicon itself, the software and the third party integration by EVGA are all very good. The card worked flawlessly out of the box using WHQL launch drivers plus EVGA offer not only a very high clock speed for their OC models but offer some great software which allows the card to be further pushed, up to its thermal and power safety limits.

If you have a fermi based 450 to 560 or even older and want a mid range upgrade, now is the time and GTX 960 is the card. Our testing proved NVIDIA's claims of performance and power efficiency over Kepler based GeForce architecture.

There has been some controversy and hate over the GTX 970 lately in on-line communities, at the end of the day we can explain the pros and cons of both brands, you the enthusiast should take this on-board and decide which brand suits your needs. I will repeat what I wrote on twitter this week.